Ernst Kantorowicz

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Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz (born May 3, 1895 in Posen , † September 9, 1963 in Princeton , New Jersey ) was a German historian and Medievalist . Initially a member of the George Circle , whose ideas strongly influenced his important youth work, Emperor Friedrich the Second , Kantorowicz emancipated himself to a large extent after the death of Stefan George in 1933 and after emigrating to the United States in 1939. In the United States, where he taught at Berkeley and Princeton, he wrote, in addition to numerous smaller studies, the still important book on The Two Bodies of the King (1957).

Life

Kantorowicz was the son of the upper-class spirits manufacturer Joseph Kantorowicz and Clara Hepner. His cousin was the poet Gertrud Kantorowicz . In 1913 he graduated from high school and began a commercial apprenticeship in Hamburg . When the First World War broke out in 1914 , Kantorowicz volunteered and had been deployed at Verdun since September of that year . In 1917 he was assigned to the Asia Corps in Turkey. After the end of the war he joined a volunteer corps in Poznan and West Prussia ( Poznan Uprising ). In January 1919 he took part in the bloody suppression of the Spartacus uprising in Berlin , and in March he was deployed against the Munich Soviet Republic . In 1918/1919 he studied one semester at the Berlin University before moving to the University of Munich in early 1919 . For the next winter semester he went to Heidelberg , where he continued to study economics and ancient history.

In Heidelberg he got to know members of the George circle and the famous poet Stefan George himself. He was especially good friends with Count Woldemar Uxkull-Gyllenband , with whom he also lived for a while. He also had a close relationship with the brothers Alexander, Berthold and Claus v. Stauffenberg , who also worked on the work of Kantorowicz's monograph on the Stauffer Emperor Friedrich II . participated. In 1921 Kantorowicz did his doctorate in Heidelberg under Eberhard Gothein with an economic history thesis on Muslim craft associations. Until 1930 he taught as a private lecturer at the University of Heidelberg . Together with George, who lived with Kantorowicz when he was in Heidelberg, he came up with the plan for a biography of the Staufer emperor Friedrich II - although he had not dealt with the Middle Ages during his studies. For the work he took inspiration above all from Wilhelm Stein and his book on Raffael , which Kantorowicz deeply impressed. In July 1926 he finally finished the manuscript, in 1927 it was published by Georg Bondi Verlag with the signet of Georges Blätter für die Kunst . In the preliminary remark, the author committed himself to Secret Germany .

From 1930 to 1932 he was an honorary professor at the University of Frankfurt am Main , before he became full professor for medieval and modern history in the same position from 1932 to 1934 . After the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933, Kantorowicz was relieved of the provisions of the soon-to-be-enacted law for the restoration of the civil service , according to which "civil servants who are not of Aryan descent [...] were retired", initially due to his participation in the war and free corps activities not affected. Nevertheless, he submitted a request for leave of absence for the following semester to the responsible minister, in which he opposed the racist and anti-Semitic regulations: “Because as long as every German Jew [...] can be considered a 'traitor' because of his origin; as long as every Jew, as such, is considered to be racially inferior; as long as the fact that you have Jewish blood in your veins at all also involves a defect in your mind; [...] as long as every German and nationally minded Jew [...] has to hide his national convictions rather shamefully than to be allowed to openly reveal them: as long as it seems to me to be incompatible with the dignity of the university lecturer to be only on the inside To provide truth-based office responsibly [...]. "

In the summer semester he only gave a private seminar in his own apartment. In the winter semester of 1933/34, he resumed teaching with a lecture on Secret Germany . Here he confessed - according to the ideas of the George Circle - to a secret realm of dead and living German emperors, heroes and artists and thus implicitly turned away from the new state of Hitler . However, since the lecture was not published, it had no further public effect. Soon afterwards, Nazi-minded students began to disrupt his lectures. On November 1, 1934, he was retired. Apart from a visiting professorship in 1934 at Oxford University , where he became friends with Maurice Bowra , he lived in Berlin.

In 1938 Kantorowicz emigrated from Berlin to Oxford and from there in 1939 to the USA ; his mother was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1942 and murdered there in 1943. In 1939 he was given a teaching position in Berkeley for medieval history, then a professorship in 1945 and was naturalized. There, in 1949, the university required its relatives to take the anti-communist oath of loyalty required by Senator Joseph McCarthy ( McCarthy era ). When Kantorowicz - "the German experiences in front of his eyes" - refused to sign it, he and 21 other faculty members were dismissed. After the end of the Second World War he continued with Alexander v. Stauffenberg continued a correspondence that had been interrupted for years, in which he suggested the Munich historian, whom his brothers Claus v. Stauffenberg and Berthold v. Stauffenberg tried to work on tyrannicide from July 20, 1944 poetically, which he also undertook.

After his release from Berkeley, at the instigation of Harold Cherniss, he was offered a professorship at the renowned Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (New Jersey), headed by Robert Oppenheimer , where he remained until his death. In 1958 Kantorowicz was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Since 1957 he was an elected member of the American Philosophical Society .

In Princeton, Kantorowicz had a friendly friendship with J. Robert Oppenheimer, Erich Kahler and George F. Kennan , the architect of the American containment policy , whose award-winning diplomacy story Russia Leaves the War (1956) Kantorowicz had read and commented on before publication. Robert L. Benson was one of his students .

His ashes were scattered in the Caribbean at Little Maho on Saint John . In 2009, Ulrich Raulff chose Circle Without Masters for the cover picture of his book . Stefan Georges Nachleben a photo of the bay.

plant

Kantorowicz has come into the public eye above all because of his two main works. Still relatively young and completely unknown as a Medievalist, the publication by Emperor Friedrich the Second made him famous in 1927. The work is now partially outdated, but is still worth reading, not least because of the linguistic brilliance and its time-bound tendencies that cannot be overlooked. In keeping with the historical image of the George Circle, Friedrich II was portrayed in the book as the “final and fulfillment emperor of German dreams” from the time he was born. Also due to the lack of annotations and evidence, which is usual for the works of science from the circle of papers for art , the work sparked a lively discussion among historians.

Albert Brackmann made the most prominent criticism in the historical journal . "The basic mistake," says Brackmann, "is obviously that Kantorowicz first 'looked, felt, experienced' the emperor and approached the sources with this previously acquired image". The well-known historian turned against the method practiced in the George circle of the “mythical view” of a historical figure . Kantorowicz replied - initially also in the historical magazine , shortly afterwards at the Historikertag 1930 in Halle an der Saale - by pointing out that a historian not only uses the positive facts of a biography, but also and above all the "myth" and the The effect of a person. For the staunch nationalist, this was related to the necessary reference of historical research to the present and future of the German nation.

Emperor Friedrich the Second caused lively debates outside of Medieval circles as well . In 1931 the third edition (7th – 10th thousand) appeared. The work was particularly well received by the interested public. A few years later, Kantorowicz provided a supplementary volume with detailed references. The book remained the most important biography of the Staufer Kaiser for five decades.

Kantorowicz 'second major work The King's Two Bodies (Eng. The Two Bodies of the King ) is an extensive "study of the political theology of the Middle Ages" (so the subtitle). From the medieval notion of a natural, i.e. mortal, body and a supernatural, i.e. immortal body of the king, he outlines the history of the development of the modern state, which distinguishes between the public function and the person who exercises it.

Fonts (selection)

  • Emperor Frederick the Second. Georg Bondi, Berlin 1927 ( Works of Science from the Circle of Pages for Art, Historical Series ; Supplementary Volume Sources and Proofs , Berlin 1931).
  • Secret Germany. Lecture, Frankfurt 1933 (full text: Das Geheime Deutschland ).
  • Laudes regiae. A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Medieval Ruler Worship. Berkeley / Los Angeles 1946.
  • The King's Two Bodies. A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology. Princeton 1957
    • The two bodies of the king. A study of the political theology of the Middle Ages . Translation Walter Theimer . Foreword by Josef Fleckenstein . Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1990
  • Gods in uniform. Studies on the development of western royalty . Edited by Eckhart Grünewald and Ulrich Raulff , Stuttgart 1998.

literature

  • Robert L. Benson , Johannes Fried (Eds.): Ernst Kantorowicz. Income from the double conference Institute for Advanced Study, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt. Steiner, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-515-06959-3 (Frankfurt historical treatises, volume 39).
  • Alain Boureau: Kantorowicz. Historian's Stories. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-608-91363-7 .
  • Lukas Burkart (Ed.): Myths, Bodies, Images. Ernst Kantorowicz between historicism, emigration and the renewal of the humanities , Göttingen 2015.
  • Wolfgang Ernst, Cornelia Vissmann (ed.): History body. On the topicality of Ernst H. Kantorowicz. Fink, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-7705-3176-0 .
  • Norman Franke: 'Divina Commedia teutsch'? Ernst H. Kantorowicz: the historian as a politician. In: Historische Zeitschrift (291, 2/2010), pp. 297-330
  • Andreas Greiert: Innovation and Resentment. Ernst Kantorowicz in the historiographical discourse of the Weimar Republic , Historical Journal, Volume 305, No. 2, 2017, p. 393
  • Eckhart Grünewald: Ernst Kantorowicz and Stefan George. Contributions to the biography of the historian up to 1938 and his youth work "Emperor Friedrich the Second". Steiner, Wiesbaden 1982, ISBN 3-515-03669-5 (Frankfurt historical treatises, volume 25).
  • Janus Gudian: Ernst Kantorowicz. The "whole person" and historiography. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-95542-085-7 .
  • Janus Gudian: Historiography for understanding the present. On the understanding of science by Ernst Kantorowicz , in: Evelyn Brockhoff, Bernd Heidenreich, Michael Maaser (eds.), Frankfurter Historiker, Wallstein 2017, pp. 121–144
  • Robert E. Lerner : Ernst H. Kantorowicz (1895–1963). In: Helen Damico, Joseph B. Zavadil (eds.): Medieval Scholarship. Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline, Volume 1: History (= Garland Reference Library on the Humanities , Volume 1350), Garland Publishing, New York 1995, ISBN 0-8240-6894-7 , pp. 263-276.
  • Robert E. Lerner: Ernst Kantorowicz: A Life , Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017, ISBN 978-0-691-17282-8 .
    • Ernst Kantorowicz. A biography . Looked through and expanded. Translation Thomas Gruber. Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 2020, ISBN 978-3-608-96199-7 .
  • Barbara Picht: Forced way out: Hermann Broch, Erwin Panofsky and Ernst Kantorowicz in Princeton exile. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2008, ISBN 978-3-534-20794-7 .
  • Olaf B. Rader : Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz (1895–1963). In: Lutz Raphael (Hrsg.): Classics of the science of history . Vol. 2: From Fernand Braudel to Natalie Z. Davies , Beck, Munich 2006, pp. 7–26.
  • Ulrich Raulff : Circle without a master. Stefan George's afterlife. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-59225-6 , in particular pp. 72-75, 157-169, 189-192, 258-261, 313-346.
  • Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.1. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , pp. 593f.
  • Hans Martin Schaller :  Kantorowicz, Ernst. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , p. 126 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Jerzy Strzelczyk (Ed.): Ernst Kantorowicz (1895–1963). Social milieu and scientific relevance. Lectures of the symposium at the Institute for History of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, 23. – 24. November 1995. Poznań 1996; 2nd edition 2000, ISBN 83-86650-23-0 .
  • Michael Matheus : Ernst H. Kantorowicz (1895–1963) and the German Historical Institute in Rome . In: Campana pulsante convocati. Festschrift on the occasion of the retirement of Prof. Dr. Alfred Haverkamp, ​​ed. by FG ​​Hirschmann and G. Mentgen, Trier 2005, pp. 291–323, ISBN 3-89890-086-X .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ See also the statement by Kantorowicz that he was "really absolutely happy with Uxkull from the very beginning" (in a letter to Stefan George of October 31, 1924, quoted in: Grünewald, Ernst Kantorowicz and Stefan George , p. 42).
  2. ^ Norman Franke: 'Divina Commedia teutsch'? Ernst H. Kantorowicz: the historian as a politician . In: Historische Zeitschrift (291, 2/2010), pp. 297-330
  3. ^ Wilhelm Stein, Raffael , Georg Bondi Verlag, Berlin 1923.
  4. ↑ On George's influence on the Friedrich book, cf. in summary Thomas Karlauf , Stefan George. The discovery of charisma , Pantheon, Munich 2008, pp. 549–553, 556–562.
  5. ↑ Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service , in: Reichsgesetzblatt I, 1933, p. 175 § 3.
  6. ↑ The request is printed in: Documents on the History of the Frankfurt Jews 1933–1945 , published by the Commission for Research into the History of the Frankfurt Jews, Frankfurt am Main 1963, p. 99 f .; quoted here from Eckhart Grünewald, Ernst Kantorowicz and Stefan George , p. 114 f.
  7. ↑ Printed in: Ernst Kantorowicz, Das Geheime Deutschland , edited by Eckhart Grünewald, in: Robert L. Benson , Johannes Fried (ed.), Ernst Kantorowicz. Income from the double conference Institute for Advanced Study, Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-University, Frankfurt , Steiner, Stuttgart 1997, pp. 77–93 (also in: George year book , Volume 3, 2000, pp. 156–175). Cf. Eckhart Grünewald, "Practicing an uns mord and rich blooms was blooming!" Ernst Kantorowicz speaks on November 14, 1933 about "Secret Germany" , in: Benson, Fried (ed.), Ernst Kantorowicz , p. 57– 76 (also in: George Year Book, Volume 3, 2000, pp. 131–155).
  8. ^ Franke, Norman: 'Divina Commedia teutsch'? Ernst H. Kantorowicz: the historian as a politician. In: Historische Zeitschrift (291, 2/2010), pp. 297-330
  9. ^ Kantorowicz Klara: Death certificate, Ghetto Terezín , at holocaust.cz
  10. ^ Franke, Norman: 'Divina Commedia teutsch'? Ernst H. Kantorowicz: the historian as a politician. In: Historische Zeitschrift (291, 2/2010), pp. 297-330
  11. ^ Norman Franke: 'Divina Commedia teutsch'? Ernst H. Kantorowicz: the historian as a politician. In: Historische Zeitschrift (291, 2/2010), pp. 297-330
  12. ↑ Member History: Ernst H. Kantorowicz. American Philosophical Society, accessed October 17, 2018 .
  13. ^ Norman P. Franke, "Divina Commedia teutsch"? Ernst H. Kantorowicz: the historian as a politician , in: Historische Zeitschrift 291/2, 2/2010, pp. 297-330.
  14. ^ Albert Brackmann, Kaiser Friedrich II. In 'mythical show' , in: Historische Zeitschrift 140, August 1929, pp. 534–549.
  15. ↑ Ernst Kantorowicz, 'Mythenschau'. A reply , in: Historische Zeitschrift 141, March 1930, pp. 457-471. Brackmann replied immediately afterwards: Afterword. Note on Kantorowicz's reply , in: Historische Zeitschrift 141, March 1930, pp. 472–478. The three contributions are reprinted in: Gunther Wolf (Ed.), Stupor Mundi. On the history of Friedrich II. Von Hohenstaufen , Darmstadt 1966, pp. 5-48.
  16. ↑ The lecture there was first printed as part of the research into Kantorowicz's work: Eckhart Grünewald, Sanctus amor patriae dat animum - a motto of the George Circle? Ernst Kantorowicz at the Historikertag in Halle ad Saale in 1930 , in: German Archives for Research into the Middle Ages 50, 1, 1994, pp. 89–125.
  17. ↑ See Eckhart Grünewald, “Not Only in Learned Circles”: The Reception of Frederick the Second in Germany before the Second World War , in: Robert L. Benson, Johannes Fried (Ed.), Ernst Kantorowicz. Income from the double conference Institute for Advanced Study, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt , Steiner, Stuttgart 1997, pp. 163–179.
  18. ^ Katharina Teutsch: Robert E. Lerner: "Ernst Kantorowicz" The historian's many bodies , review on deutschlandfunk.de from June 7, 2020, accessed June 8, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Kantorowicz, Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kantorowicz, Ernst Hartwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American historian and medievalist
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Poses
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 1963
Place of death Princeton